always blame someone else - the bush legacy

Bush said that Saddam was a tyrant and used violence to exacerbate sectarian divisions to keep himself in power, and that as a result, deep tensions persist to this day.
--source

monkey see, monkey do

RNC Memo Warns GOPers Not To Distance Themselves From Bush

Republican pollster Jan van Lohuizen, in a memo written for RNC chairman Ken Mehlman, warns that if members of Congress try to drive a wedge between themselves and Pres. Bush, it'd be akin to adding weight to an anchor. GOpers are "W Brand Republicans" whether they like it or not. And van Louhizen, who has polled (often secretly) for the Bush White House under the RNC aegis for years, is worried about low turnout.

--source

then there's this headline in the columbus dispatch: President showing signs of losing support among Ohio Republicans

from the REALLY? file

FLORENCE - A 13-year-old Ockerman Middle School student has been charged with threatening George W. Bush, just days before the president is set to throw the first pitch for Reds Opening Day in Cincinnati.

--story

when the kids start threatening the president, you know something's not right with him.

from the WELL DUH department

another job done by the bushite repukes that shows signs of deteriorating into a cesspool of wasted resource.

USAT notes that the Department of Homeland Security is doing a fine job of ... losing its managers. The department is "hemorrhaging on the front lines and higher up," said one analyst. Among the currently open spots are the heads of the divisions for cyber-security, for technology, and for disaster response. Surveys have consistently ranked the department among the worst to work at.

they're killing us on TCE at a time

The LAT fronts the first of a two-part investigation showing an EPA study concluding a few years ago that a chemical—trichloroethylene or TCE—that has contaminated loads of groundwater is more dangerous than previously thought. The EPA began to consider tighter standards for exposure to TCE, at which point the Pentagon—one-time heavy TCE users—lobbied, the White House backed them, and the tighter regs withered.

want a 5 minute lesson on bush doublespeak?

read THIS.

an excerpt:

Souter stops him, amazed. "The suspension of the Writ," the justice sputters, is the most "stupendously significant act" Congress can undertake. "Are you really saying Congress may validly suspend it inadvertently?" he asks. It's the morning's best example of the degree to which, for Souter as well as for Justice Stephen Breyer, today's argument is an agonizing exercise in Bush administration doublespeak. Clement's arguments are frequently drawn from the well of "because the president says so," or "because the president is the president," or "because it's wartime." They start to sound like Alberto Gonzales' testimony before Congress or the president's signing statements: legal analysis by assertion and justification by double standard. This war is like every other war except to the extent that it differs from those other wars. We follow the laws of war except to the extent that they do not apply to us. These prisoners have all the rights to which they are entitled by law, except to the extent that we have changed the law to limit their rights.

Letter Of The Day

I am intrigued that the Iowa House has passed legislation that, if enacted, will prevent schools from counting recess and pep rallies as part of their school day (“House: Hours Matter, Not School Days,” March 22). Does this mean that the physical activity and the learning-to-get-along skills used during recess are unimportant? Is school spirit and the sense of belonging simply a frill that has no adult-life value?

If this is the case, my 42-year teaching career was out of touch with what kids need and what activities lead to a better society.
Silly me. I should have asked Iowa legislators what to teach, when to teach and how to teach it. Apparently they know all the answers.
— Jacquie McTaggart, Independence.

atribution

Picture Of The Day

with a caption:

that famale disgusts me.

why i hate george bush jr.

It was 9:30 on a recent Friday night when Denise Grier saw blue lights in her rearview mirror.

She pulled over on Chamblee-Tucker Road, unaware of her infraction.

"The officer asked if I knew I had a lewd decal on my car and I thought, 'Oh gosh, what did my kids put on my car?' "

As it turns out, the decal was an anti-Bush bumper sticker Grier slapped on her 2001 Chrysler Sebring last summer. The bumper sticker — "I'm Tired Of All The BUSH—" — contains an expletive.

The officer "said DeKalb had an ordinance about lewd decals and wrote me a ticket" for $100, said Grier, an oncology nurse at Emory University Hospital who lives in Athens.

--source

lewd? Main Entry: lewd
Pronunciation: 'lüd
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English lewed vulgar, from Old English l[AE]wede laical, ignorant
1 obsolete : EVIL, WICKED
2 a : sexually unchaste or licentious b : OBSCENE, VULGAR

the only thing ignorant in this case, is the arresting officer.

don't ya just feel all nice and safe now?

Ω

who would you believe?

an organization that has proven itself liars time and time again, or a news agency who has been proven right time and time again?

The LAT and NYT front Shiite leaders ripping into the U.S. for what Iraqis said was a raid on a mosque that killed at least 16 civilians, including Shiite politicians. As the WP emphasizes, the U.S. said it wasn't a mosque and was a "hugely successful" operation against a "terrorist cell." They also said the operation was led by Iraqi troops. Shiite politicians suspended negotiations for a new government and demanded a joint investigation. "I warn [the U.S.] that a battle with the calm giant Shiite means they are falling into a dangerous swamp," said a spokesman for the prime minister's party.

it's prerty clear now who's in charge here. isn't that "bring it on' i hear?

they do this in dicatorships

The House version (of the immigration bill), unlike the bill endorsed by the Senate panel, would make it a crime for charitable groups to aid illegal workers.

Letter of the Day

When Amana’s sexton, Brian Hollrah, mentioned how it’s harder to make some tombstones than others, he was alluding to the death of my son, Jordan Hans Heusinkveld. Besides dying in a car crash on his mother’s birthday, Jordan was buried in the Amana cemetery on what would have been his 19th birthday. The 19-year-old girl who hit us head-on was fined $37 for unsafe passing plus court costs.
— David B. Heusinkveld, Amana.

attribution

Quote of the Day

"Congress simply must summon the courage to disabuse President Bush of the notion that he doesn't have to obey the law."
--Des Moines Editorial Board

attribution

in the midst of the wilderness it's nice to find some shade

BAGHDAD, March 26 -- A doctor in the northern city of Kirkuk has admitted to killing at least 35 Iraqi police officers and Army soldiers by giving them lethal injections, reopening their wounds and engaging in other deadly acts as they were being treated in Kirkuk Hospital, according to Kurdish security sources and Kurdish television.

On Sunday, Kurdish TV aired what it said was the doctor's taped confession, in which he told police that he sympathized with the radical Sunni Arab insurgent group Ansar al-Sunna, which paid him to kill the men. He worked with the group, he said, because "I hate the Americans and what they've done to Iraq."

"I injected more than 35 policeman and soldiers, including officers and some who were slightly injured," the doctor, identified by a Kurdish security official as Luay Omar Taie, said in the taped statement. "I used to stop the breathing machines or cut the electricity in the operations room or reopen the wounds."

--source

and what i found in the thread:

You know, one of the fine hairs being split by the Bush Administration is that stories planted in Iraq by semi-governmental psyops organizations such as the Rendon Group don't affect Americans here at home, so it's not illegally planting propaganda here in the U.S.

Then last week, the President spluttered around criticizing the media for not printing the "good news" coming out of Iraq. I was holding my breath, hoping that the President would cite some of those planted stories as examples of the "good news." That could have been added somewhere around Article MMCXII of the President's future impeachment articles. Either I missed it, or maybe he was coached not to, or maybe the press was coached not to ask, but I didn't see him do it.

But what about this story? It's got all sorts of plant-like attributes: an evil doctor breaking his sacred oath, a whole lot of difficult to verify victims, a confession in a place where it's known that torture is used, confirmation from shady intelligence types, and relayed via Kurdish television. Anyone want to take a look and see if that Kurdish TV station is funded by the CIA, say through the Voice of America?

If it is a plant, and it made the A Section of the Washington Post, that would sort of negate the idea that this propaganda isn't filtering back to Americans, wouldn't it?

isn't it nice to know that there are more of us out there?

seems that there's corruption at every level

in every corner, when it comes to oil & gas.

The NYT investigates what led the Bush administration to waive $7 billion in oil-industry royalties, employing an incentive that was meant to be used when energy prices were low. Instead, say Democrats, taxpayers are paying to subsidize oil companies at a time of record profits. The answer: "a law riddled with ambiguities," "crucial errors by midlevel bureaucrats under President Bill Clinton," "inducements from the Bush administration," and "shrewd lobbying and litigation" at every turn from oil and gas companies.

Quote of the Day

"Any definition of terrorism that would include someone throwing a bottle or rock through a window during an antiwar demonstration is dangerously overbroad."

--ACLU staff attorney Ben Wizner

attribution

well, there ya have it folks

bush was intent on invading iraq regardless... REGARDLESS.

The NYT discovers a British memo that seems to demonstrate that President Bush was determined to go to war with Iraq while the U.S. was still pressing for a second U.N. resolution. The memo, written by Tony Blair's then top foreign-policy adviser, reveals that even as President Bush was publicly offering Saddam Hussein a chance to disarm, he told the British PM that he was determined to invade Iraq even without a resolution and even if arms inspectors failed to find weapons.

Letter of the WeeQ

In explaining the vote to remove TouchPlay machines, House Speaker Christopher Rants said, “Iowans want them gone. They wanted them gone yesterday. They didn’t want them gone two years from now” (March 17).

I will expect him to act with equal speed and vigor in attacking the other nuisance that has proliferated in our state — hog factories.

Iowans want them gone. We wanted them gone yesterday. We don’t want them gone two years from now. I am thrilled that Rants is finally seeing the light, and I anxiously await his bill to ban hog factories.
— Carol Dupic, Emmetsburg.

attribution

Letter Of The Day

Chet Guinn’s articulate summary pointing out how peace activists’ predictions were right about the dire consequences of our invading Iraq (“Peace Activists Were Right About War, Could Help Now,” March 18 guest opinion) was in sharp contrast to Cal Thomas’ column describing activists who gave their life for a world of peace and justice as irrelevant (“Defeat Evil Before Attempting Peace,” March 15).

I, too, am waiting for Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and yes, even David Yepsen, to admit that Pandora’s box has opened wider and evil inflamed around the world since our Iraq invasion. The world is less secure, we are buried in monumental debt, we grieve the lives of thousands and we are without respect in the world theater as the chaos of the last three years worsens.

Just as the peace activists predicted.
— Lloyd Kaufman, Des Moines.

attribution

Quote of the Decade

"...Our own editors back in New York are asking us the same things. They read the same comments. You know, are there positive stories? Can't you find them? You don't think that I haven't been to the U.S. military and the State Department and the embassy and asked them over and over again, let's see the good stories, show us some of the good things that are going on? Oh, sorry, we can't take to you that school project, because if you put that on TV, they're going to be attacked about, the teachers are going to be killed, the children might be victims of attack.

Oh, sorry, we can't show this reconstruction project because then that's going to expose it to sabotage. And the last time we had journalists down here, the plant was attacked. I mean, security dominates every single thing that happens in this country….So how it is that security issues should not then dominate the media coverage coming out of here?"

- Lara Logan

attribution
YOU GO GURL!! and i take back everything i wrote about you.

from the WELL DUH file

On top of other woes confronting Republicans, the continuing violence in Iraq and President Bush's message last week that the deployment would last several more years has heightened Republicans' concerns about how voters such as Larrison will view the party in the November elections.

--source

"i'll do what i damn well please" -george bush jr.

WASHINGTON -- When President Bush signed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act this month, he included an addendum saying that he did not feel obliged to obey requirements that he inform Congress about how the FBI was using the act's expanded police powers.

--source

and people wonder why i hate this man.

are we TRYING to create civil war in iraq?

sounds like it to me:

"The American forces went into Mustafa mosque at prayers and killed more than 20 worshippers," Hazim al-Araji told Reuters news agency, citing a larger death toll than the 18 counted by medical sources.

--source

Quote of the Day

"Team Bush is entering the "just don't care" phase. Their mission has been largely accomplished with the transfer of over five trillion dollars into the protected accounts of their friends around the world, and a guarantee for trillions more during what will certainly be a traumatic economic upheaval accompanying the realization that energy will soon cost ten to twenty times as much as it has historically."

"In other words, they got theirs. With no sense of history, humanity, or fear of prosecution, they don't care."
--pigwidgeon

attribution

from the HOW IN HELL COULD THAT HAPPEN file

A U.S. Navy destroyer collided with an oil tanker in the Persian Gulf off Iraq, slightly injuring four people, the Navy said Sunday.

--source

the story doesn't go into how, which makes me wonder why they even print the thing.

corruptions DEFINED

and the liars that define it:

The Washington Post leads with news that Edwin Buckham, a former chief of staff and political adviser to Tom DeLay, collected over a million dollars in payments from a pro-family nonprofit organization. Buckham set up the U.S. Family Network – a group whose revenue came mostly from clients of lobbyist Jack Abramoff—while in DeLay's employ. Although DeLay claimed the USFN was a "nationwide, grass-roots organization," the 3 million dollars it collected in five years was mostly funneled to DeLay's advisers or used to fund ads attacking Democrats. In addition, the money was spent on costly art as well as lavish travel and entertainment for Buckham. The WP also notes that "Abramoff, for his part, once boasted that he had invested a million dollars in Buckham."

another repuke program that has backfired

The New York Times leads with a report that in order to comply with the testing requirements of the No Child Left Behind education law, schools nationwide are ratcheting up the amount of time students spend on reading and math—to the exclusion of other courses. Because the law only requires annual tests in those two subjects, schools are ditching history, science, art, and music and concentrating on their test scores. At one school in California, some students spend five of their six class periods on math, reading, and gym, with only 55 minutes reserved for another subject; the school's lowest performers don't even get that extra class. There's a split among experts as to whether such intense focus on math and reading will eventually help underperforming students, or will, as some suggest, lead to student burnout.

caught in a lie

this should become a new thread. God knows how many republicans (and probably a few democrats) in its web. but to start it off, we have chris rants, iowa's house speaker:

First, House Speaker Christopher Rants created headlines by accusing the lottery of misleading lawmakers. A week later, TouchPlay was back in the news when a review of legislative records revealed that lottery officials had regularly kept elected officials updated about the program — and even had provided photos of the machines that showed how similar they were to slot machines.

--source

how can you tell someone listens to too much foxnews

they write stupid letters like this:

Another typical liberal thought process was given by Diane Lansink (“Who Are Bush Fans?” March 16 letter).

Even Saddam Hussein’s generals didn’t know he destroyed the weapons of mass destruction.

There is no “civil chaos” in Iraq — the insurgents get all the attention from the liberal media.

“Loss of our best in the military”? These people signed up voluntarily, and it is better to have the fight over there than here.

Wiretapping of U.S. citizens is not illegal, no matter what the liberals say. Her letter is just another sample of how a liberal speaks and writes without having all the facts.

I don’t claim to have all the facts, but I would rather trust our generals in Iraq and our president at home to keep us safe, not the Tom Harkins, Harry Reids, Al Frankens and other liberals speaking without all the information being considered.

— Gordon D. Tjelmeland, Clive.

attribution

it was all i could do to keep from laughing my ass off.

Letter of the Year

boy, i should have probably waited before printing the other letters, but hell. it was a good day for LOT* today.

Watching President Bush’s press conference on March 21, a sense of shame overtook me. How is he able to laugh and joke when asked questions about war? And how can the reporters sit there and laugh along with his jokes during a time so many people are dying every day?

The only person in the press corps who seemed ready and willing to ask Bush a tough question was Helen Thomas. She asked Bush why we really went to war. No one came to her defense when Bush gave her an evasive answer, and TV newscasts later called her hostile.
How can those reporters sit there in silence and not scream out “liar” when Bush says he never linked 9/11 to Saddam Hussein?

I am embarrassed by this president every time he opens his mouth. I wonder, what happened to America? America doesn’t torture. America doesn’t let people rot in jail for years without due process. America doesn’t stifle science. America doesn’t conduct massive, secret spying on its own citizens. America doesn’t believe the individual is an annoyance, an impediment to supreme government power.

Has the American public become so isolated, ill-informed about the world and drugged by consumerism that it can’t be bothered to turn off its big-screen TVs and find out what has happened to their country?

They seem to care more about Tom Cruise, American Idol and Starbucks than about innocent civilians being killed in our name.

I hope that someday we will all wake up and find our missing America. If not, we are in for a rough ride ahead.

— William C. Stosine. Iowa City.

attribution

Letter of the WeeQ

I applaud Senator Tom Harkin’s assessment of the war in Iraq (“3 Years Later, What Next in Iraq? Pull Out Troops Caught in a Sectarian Fight,” March 13 guest editorial). He states that it is the ongoing presence of United States forces that prevents Iraq’s leaders from resolving their political differences and forming a true national-unity government.

Seventy-two percent of U.S. troops believe we should get out this year. To those who say withdrawing too quickly would help terrorists, I say “staying the course” has resulted in a seemingly endless supply of terrorists.

After three years, the bombing and retribution killings are increasing, not decreasing. One of the Iraqi women touring the United States, Eman Khammas, told a packed audience of college students in Maryland, “The U.S. invasion has killed our people, ruined our lives and destroyed our country. It is responsible for the sectarian violence, and the sooner the foreign troops leave, the sooner we Iraqis can come together to rebuild our nation.”

— Delores Mulvihill, Grinnell.

attribution

Letter Of The Day

Congressman Jim Nussle’s office announced an April fundraising dinner featuring President George W. Bush for a paltry $200 a plate. For the many, many Iowans earning the minimum wage of $5.15, that’s dinner for 38.83 hours of labor, or 4.85 eight-hour work days. Not exactly a happy meal.

— Stan Beyerman, Des Moines.

attribution

oh GOD nooooo

gloria borger taking schieffer's spot on FTN. God help us.

why not ask hadley about the CIA spy in saddam's inner circle in the days up to the invasion?

Joke of the Day

But even here in the president's home state, in a region densely populated by energy and petrochemical industries with warm ties to the White House, consensus is that progress is being made in spite of the federal government, not because of it.

Dissatisfaction with what is seen as a heartless Bush administration recovery effort is widespread.

"We need some compassionate conservatism," said Mark Viator, a chemical company official who is chairman of the Southeast Texas Recovery Coalition, a group of area leaders that has been lobbying Washington for assistance.

"Make no mistake about it: They don't care about you, and they don't care about what is happening in our communities," said Chester R. Jourdan Jr., executive director of the Southeast Texas Regional Planning Commission. Jourdan made his comments at a public meeting last week less than two hours after returning from a fruitless lobbying trip to the nation's capital.

--source

katrina will have lasting effects for the bush administration. long after the houses are rebuilt, and long after bush is put out to pasture, his legacy will have a katrina labelling.

this fuckn mac is really bothering me today

first yahoo weather stopped reporting current temps ... not only for my town but for every town. that makes their widgets useless. weather.com, which provides their weather, is current, so its a matter of yahoo not reporting it. then i got mac crashing all over the place. safari. the thing jus pisses me off so much that i have to reboot every time i turn around it seems. i want my windows box back.

an open message to yahoo

what yahh hoo decided to drop the current temperature from the weather pages? what a dumb-ass idea. the one who made this decision should be fired. i rely on the yahoo weather widget to tell me what temperature it is outside. now i'm gonna have to buy a thermometer.

from the folks who should know better than anyone else

New York - As debate over the issue flares in several states, a major adoption institute says in a new report that it strongly supports the rights of gays and lesbians to adopt, and urges that remaining obstacles be removed.

--source

when will America rid itself of the bigotry of homophobia? i thought in my lifetime, but i don't know....

see dick sing, see dick hunt, see dick lie

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney on Friday rejected charges by Democrats that the Bush administration was mishandling Iraq and said: "If they are competent to fight this war, then I ought to be singing on American Idol."

--source

just like a bush.... keeping it all in the family

The LAT picks up the story that Barbara Bush donated money for Hurricane Katrina evacuees in Houston, and specifically instructed that part of the money be spent on buying educational software from her son Neil's company. Although the LAT does not mention it, the Houston Chronicle first reported this story on Thursday. The WP's Al Kamen mentioned the story in his column yesterday, and credited the Chronicle for the scoop.

from the GOOD NEWS file

seems the FEC finally has something we can brag about. from today's papers:

The Post goes inside with new rules proposed by the Federal Elections Commission that would pretty much extend the media exemption to the online world, thereby permitting Web sites and bloggers to attack or praise candidates. Campaign advertisement on the Internet will have to be paid with money regulated by federal campaign law and must carry a disclaimer. For the most part, bloggers and their advocates welcomed the new proposals.

why didn't russion join the coalition to invade iraq?

since they were very much a part of duping saddam in the early days of the invasion.

Letter Of The Day

To those who believe sexual orientation is a choice: Surely, then, you must remember the day you made your choice on such an important matter, don’t you?

— Kathy Collins Reilly, Des Moines.

attribution

today's GEM:

I and some other journalists had lunch with Senator Joe Lieberman the other day and we listened to him talking about Iraq. Either Senator Lieberman is so divorced from reality that he's completely lost the plot or he knows he's spinning a line. Because one of my colleagues turned to me in the middle of this lunch and said he's not talking about any country I've ever been to and yet he was talking about Iraq, the very country where we were sitting.

--atrios

tee hee

HYPOCRISY ALERT

President Bush, trying to regain his political footing ahead of this year's critical midterm elections, asserted Friday "the difference is clear" between the two parties on how to sustain the U.S. economic recovery.

"If you want the goverment in your pocket vote Democrat," Bush said. "If you want to keep more of your hard earned money vote Republican."

--source

if i want the government in my pocket, i'll buy a senator. the only record he has to stand on is a broken one, one of deficits so high you could walk to the moon on the money.

watching cspan

listening to josh conlangelo-bryan, of the dorsey & whitney law firm, on the treatment of detainees at gitmo.

that our government is behind the abuses down there of human beings should boil the blood of every red-blooded American.

listening to ex-prisoner shafiq rasul.

GITMO MUST BE SHUT DOWN!! we can no longer allow our government to operate in this fashion. this is not what America is about.

bush looked at putin and saw his soul

i wonder if he saw the soul of a friend or foe, as one has to wonder after reading this:

The Russian government provided Saddam Hussein with intelligence on U.S. military movements and plans during the opening days of the war in 2003, according to a Pentagon report released Friday.

--yahoo

caught this image over on DU and thought i'd share

because it demonstrates exactly how i feel, and why i hate this man so.

why do we even bother to have a congress?

WASHINGTON -- When President Bush signed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act this month, he included an addendum saying that he did not feel obliged to obey requirements that he inform Congress about how the FBI was using the act's expanded police powers.

The bill contained several oversight provisions intended to make sure the FBI did not abuse the special terrorism-related powers to search homes and secretly seize papers. The provisions require Justice Department officials to keep closer track of how often the FBI uses the new powers and in what type of situations. Under the law, the administration would have to provide the information to Congress by certain dates.

Bush signed the bill with fanfare at a White House ceremony March 9, calling it ''a piece of legislation that's vital to win the war on terror and to protect the American people." But after the reporters and guests had left, the White House quietly issued a ''signing statement," an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law.

In the statement, Bush said that he did not consider himself bound to tell Congress how the Patriot Act powers were being used and that, despite the law's requirements, he could withhold the information if he decided that disclosure would ''impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative process of the executive, or the performance of the executive's constitutional duties."

--source

signing statements had been used about 70 times before bush. bush has some 200 of 'em, and we're not even half way through his second term. no wonder he's got tortureman gonzales as his attorney general.

FARPOINT.FACTOID

There are thought to be about 20,000 non-Iraqi civilian contractors supporting a range of U.S. efforts, including about 6,000 security contractors. According to Department of Labor statistics, more than 400 U.S. civilians have died there.

--SOURCE